Each morning, I pull aside the dining room curtains, glancing quickly into the woods. It's a habit, part of the routine of starting the day. Usually there's not much there other than the cottonwoods, rhododendrons, and cedar trees, but it's Spring, so at the moment, the occasional deer or bunny can be found next to our fence in a flattened outcropping just at the edge of the woods.

From this same window yesterday, I watched a doe who couldn't see or smell me. I'd had my eye on it earlier in the week, but it was hard to know, unless the creature had unusual markings or perhaps an injury, if it was the same deer from one day to the next. The last time I saw her -- my doe, a Columbian black-tailed deer -- she'd spent a long time lying on the one flattened spot, a deer bed by the fence.

Then, she was gone.

When I saw her again the following morning, she stepped into the sunlight, this time with a fawn whose tan coat was dappled with white. It was the approximate size of my neighbor's barky, fou-fou shelter dog, Chloe. The fawn stood so close to the doe that it appeared to be leaning against her. Was this the same deer, only now with a newborn? The doe lowered her head and began licking the fawn. Slowly, carefully.

I was held there by the tenderness she showed the fawn. It was so normal, basic and touching. Of course a mother has to clean her young. I was still gripping an edge of the window curtain when my three-year-old came up behind me. In his small voice, he began asking me a series of questions.

"Why they here? What they doing? Where they going? What they eat? Where they sleep at night?"

Ah, deer existentialism via a toddler. All before 7 a.m.

I thought of what the British child development and parenting authority, Penelope Leach, writes in her ever-sensible classic, Your Baby and Child:

Several hundred ‘why’ questions per day... can be very wearing. But remember that the child is asking because he needs to know. He is adding to his store of knowledge and understanding...’Why’s’ are a clear sign of growing up.

Growing up or not, at the moment, I wasn't sure how to answer his questions, so I deflected them. I asked him if he remembered being a baby like the fawn. A different set of questions then ensued about his infancy, questions I was certainly qualified to answer.

Once all that was settled, Kingston and I continued to watch the woods. The two animals remained in our view, silent in their interactions. The doe began to turn. She took a few steps without looking back. The fawn followed, wobbling on its spindly new legs. It stepped behind her and into the shadow of the cottonwoods.

When I later visited the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website to be better prepared for the inevitable moment in the future when I would have to answer more questions about deer, the information I found included this:

Deer often become very habitual in their activities. They show up at the same time and follow the same trails, taking paths of least resistance. Although deer may be active at any time of day, they are most active near dawn and dusk (a pattern of activity called “crepuscular”). Typically, deer feed in open habitats such as meadows and clearcuts, retreating to more secure areas, such as thickets and closed canopy forests, to rest and chew their cud.

To observe deer, position yourself at dawn or dusk near cover in a good deer-feeding area. Remain absolutely still, because deer are alert for any movement.

Tenderness. A doe cleaning her fawn. Shoots of baby lettuces popping up in wild disarray. Thin strands of deep green grass taking over a lawn suddenly bordering on overgrown. Stalks of asparagus pushing through the cool, loamy soil. To me, that's what Spring is all about: beginnings, the quiet moments before the inevitable hurtling toward growth and growing up.

Asparagus in particular signals the start of all things crisp and green, sweet and bright to come in the warmer months. In recent weeks, the dull green and purple bundles have been making their appearance at our local farmer's market and our family has been happily devouring as much as we can.

You can prepare asparagus any way you want -- on the grill, chopped up and sautéed, even pickled -- and they will taste good. The tender stalks don't need much, a little acid, spice and some fat. Fat adds the requisite richness to the asparagus' lean, grassy flavor, helping it reach its full potential.

My favorite way to make asparagus is to coat the stalks with a flavor bomb of zingy heat and richness, which I then cook on a stovetop grill pan. It's a quick process leaving behind both savory charred bits and a hint of the vegetable's just-cooked freshness.

Grilled Asparagus with Peri-Peri (Berbere)

This makes enough for two greedy eaters as a vegetarian lunch when served with some crusty bread and cheese or a salad. This is also great inside a brioche bun alone or with some other grilled vegetables and eaten as a sandwich. Peri-peri, also known as Berbere, is an aromatic North African spice mixture that usually includes cayenne, fenugreek, cumin, allspice and coriander. When combined with fat, the flavors somersault around in your mouth and you can't stop eating!

Another thing. Depending on whether you make the peri-peri yourself or use a store-bought version, you'll have more or less salt and heat. Adjust this to suit your own tastes. My peri-peri is from our local co-op and already contains salt.

Ingredients1 pound fresh asparagus, washed and patted dry4 tablespoons mayonnaise, good store-bought or homemade2 teaspoons peri-peri, adding more if desiredsalt, as neededblack pepper, a few grindssqueeze of lemon juice to finish

InstructionsFor thin asparagus stalks, break off tough ends. For thicker stalks, cut the tough ends off. Set aside in a large bowl. (Don't forget to pat your asparagus dry. If it is wet, the spice mixture will slide right off and that will be just sad.)

Mix together mayonnaise, peri-peri, salt (if needed) and pepper. Spoon mixture over the asparagus then use your hands to toss so that all stalks are coated with the mayonnaise mixture. Use your fingers to rub the mayo mixture into the tips of the stalks. You want flavor in every nooks and crannies.

Heat grill pan on high on a stove. Once pan is piping hot, place stalks on the pan, allowing the stalks to cook and char for 2-3 minutes before shaking the pan to move the asaparagus around. Cook for an additional 2 minutes, continuing to turn and move the asparagus. Place on a serving platter and finish with a squeeze of lemon if desired.

The asparagus can be served hot, warm, or at room temperature. It's all delicious.

April is an iffy month around here. For a few days at a time sun and warmth appears, fanning our hopes for the ultimate end of winter-like weather. Then, rain and coolness show up again, underscoring the basic changeable nature of our existence.

That was the case a couple of weeks ago when I was driving down to Seattle with my husband and son. About 30 miles south, as we entered Skagit County, we headed straight into a storm. Ice pounded the top of our truck. Our windshield vibrated as it repelled angry chunks of hail. We watched cars in front of us skidding off the ice-covered road, a State patrol officer standing just beyond his vehicle to the side, as if waiting for the inevitable.

When we arrived in the Emerald City, the sky was almost cloudless, blue. The city was warm, filled with sunlight.

Strange, but the person who popped into my head in the middle of that ice storm wasn't my mother, my brother, or any of my good friends. It wasn't a version of what one might call God. Instead, it was a teenaged girl from South Central.

I met Della about an eon ago, at my first paying job out of grad school, when I was just emerging from a dark time in my personal life. The job I got was as a mental health therapist in a Level-12 residential facility for pregnant and parenting teens in the middle of Los Angeles. At any given time, there were 60 adolescent girls and 30 babies and infants. The girls were monitored 24 hours a day.

As you might imagine, this was a recipe for frequent chaos, including nightly "incidents" forming a long list that was read to us by the Mental Health Director each morning. Sometimes girls would barricade themselves in their rooms, threatening to smash any remaining furniture not already pushed against the door. Or, they declared that they were planning to hurt themselves, maybe with a razor blade, a knife, whatever it took.

Other times, the disturbances were more along the lines of teenage pranks, such as when two of the residents collected enough packets of ketchup and mustard from the cafeteria to spell out "FUCK YOU" in huge letters across the door and window of the Facility Director's office.

I got to hear the girls' stories, either directly from them, reading their case files or talking to their social workers. Unsurprisingly, most of them had been abused, sexually and otherwise, sometimes by people they should have been able to trust, other times by strangers.

No matter what they had been through, they mostly acted tough as Teflon, even as they begged us to take them for walks off campus (they could only leave with a staff member) to the closest shopping destination, Smart & Final. There, still dressed in their usual pajama pants and slippers, they would buy oversized packages of Hot Cheetos and massive tubs of Red Vines. No matter what they'd been through, in some basic ways, they were still just teens.

Della was a lot like the other girls. She had landed in foster care when her grandmother, who had been her caregiver, went to prison for shooting her husband after he'd beaten her for years. When Della became pregnant at the age of fifteen, she was placed in our facility.

As her assigned therapist, I would go to see Della in her room, which she shared with her daughter, Soraya. Sometimes we folded clothes together, picked things up off the floor, and listened to music. For much of the time at the beginning of our relationship though, we hardly spoke at all. I would show up several times a week, rapping lightly on her door. She put up with my presence, even if it was one of silence. That was part of the deal with living there; they all had to tolerate such visits.

I kept showing up because it was my job, but in time I also grew to respect the gentle way Della spoke to her daughter, the patience with which she would work a small comb through Soraya's hair, even when she squirmed and squirmed. One day, while quietly dabbing Vaseline onto Soraya's scalp, Della suddenly turned and asked me if I wanted to learn how to braid hair. She meant black hair. I said yes and settled in next to them. From that day on, the bouts of silence between us began to lessen.

During each of the Director's morning recitations of the previous night's chaotic events, Della's name rarely came up. She tended to stick to herself and focus on taking care of her daughter.

Then one morning I walked into our morning meeting to hear Della being discussed. She had been passing a petition around to demand a change in the cafeteria's food. We all happened to eat there, since it was difficult to leave the grounds for lunch. Our work days also typically ran well past dinnertime, so we usually just ate dinner with the girls in the cafeteria.

Della had spoken to the others. Her petition argued that the food being served was "too white" and that change was necessary. Most of the girls in the residence were either African-American or Hispanic and Della believed the food should reflect that. The menu should include things such as the sweet potatoes and collard greens her grandmother cooked for her and burritos, tacos and other more familiar items for the Hispanic residents.

We therapists were impressed by Della's efforts and in the end, the cafeteria menu was changed to reflect the demands of the petition (signed by nearly all of the girls).

Della's petition might seem like a small thing. It wasn't. For someone who was used to being treated as less than, making a demand such as this took courage and some understanding that food provides us with much more than physical sustenance. It can also be a forceful signifier of who we are, where we come from and where we have been.

I'm still not entirely sure why I thought of Della that day, but I am glad that I did. She taught me a lot about what it takes to be a mother, especially under extremely difficult circumstances. Perhaps an image of her was etched long ago, deep within my brain, as a symbol of what it means to survive and continue on.

I don't know where Della is anymore. But, I made this dish just for her.

To finish:Additional salt, to tastePepper, to tasteCrème fraicheFinely chopped chives or scallions

InstructionsCombine prepped sweet potato, collard greens, cabbage, scallions and cheddar in a large bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, combine flour, both types of paprika, salt and cayenne. Add flour mixture to the vegetables, and combine gently with your hands or a pair of tongs. You want to work the mixture through all of the vegetables. Beat eggs in a small bowl then add water. Add egg mixture to the vegetables and mix gently but well. Again, hands or tongs work well for this task. Allow mixture to sit for 5 or 10 minutes.

In the meantime, heat a skillet over medium heat (if you're in a hurry, or just more efficient than I am, use two skillets, dividing the veggie mixture). Add a teaspoon of oil to the heated pan and swirl. Add spoonfuls of the vegetable mixture to the pan, forming approximately 3-inch pancakes. Don't overcrowd them. Cook the first side for 6 minutes, flip and cook the other side an additional 6 minutes. Each side should be well browned. Continue doing this with the remaining veggie mixture until you have cooked it all.

Serve pancakes with any additional salt (if you feel it needs it), pepper, and if you like, a dollop of crème fraiche followed by an enthusiastic sprinkling of chives or scallions.

*Note: These pancakes do not crisp up all the way through, but remain (pleasingly) soft-ish in center.

Last September, our mother flew up with my brother, Warren, on a budget airline -- the only one that offers direct flights between LAX and our little town up here in Western Washington.

Our mom is the wonton lady. Whenever she shows up anywhere, she pulls out a foil-wrapped package of thawed wonton wrappers from the best dumpling place in Chinatown. Then, she'll ask if you have any pork, ginger, garlic and scallions (which of course you do, having prepared for her arrival) and gets going like a productive elf until the dining room table is covered with cornstarch-dusted trays of dumplings.

Flo is what we call our mom, mostly behind her back because even though she has an "American" name (Florence), she has always hated it. As her evil spawn, we get a (juvenile) kick out of freely throwing about the name she always complains about people using -- even though when people ask, she tells them, with a smile, that her name is Florence.

Dumplings: edible clouds.

"How was the trip with Flo?" I asked Warren.

He rolled his eyes then explained what had happened.

In her suitcase, Flo had packed frozen homemade wontons -- not just the frozen skins, but the actual dumplings, pork filling and all. Being oblivious during the check-in process since after over forty years in this country, her grasp of the English language is barely functional at best, she had allowed Warren to do the talking while she stood off to the side.

Warren and I long ago agreed, after seeing a photo of Nelson Mandela, the South African leader and icon, that our mother bore a striking resemblance to him -- only more Chinese. We thought it was probably the similar haircut, the close-cropped, graying frizz perched on the top of her head. I pictured her now at the airline ticketing counter staring dreamily away with her Nelson Mandela hairdo, her small hands pushed into the pockets of the nubby maroon sweater she wears almost every day.

After Warren thunked Flo's black bag onto the scale, the airline agent immediately declared it overweight. He stated that there would be an additional charge of $50. My brother is the perfect example of the good Chinese son. Rather than make his mother remove some of the clumps of frozen meat and dough from her bag, he paid the fee. Filial duty reigned.

“Fifty dollars?” I was appalled for him. “Why didn’t you make her take it out?”

He let out what resembled a half groan, half laugh.

See, not to sound disrespectful, but our mother was never much of a cook. Our childhood memories of her efforts in the kitchen lean toward images of soggy food and things with burnt edges. Maybe it had something to do with her being a single mom who worked as a sweatshop seamstress twelve hours a day. It didn't leave much time for her to think about cooking.

She only turned into the wonton lady once we became grownups and moved away from home. She began traveling to us for extended visits that would inevitably turn into wonton making extravaganzas. Even though we now eat her wontons, which are certainly good, we still approach them with remnants of our childhood skepticism.

For the rest of the trip, Warren and I referred to the foil-wrapped lumps as “the fifty-dollar wontons.” As in, “Do you want to eat some fifty-dollar wontons?” Then, we would laugh.

We didn’t tell our mother about it. She would not have found any of it amusing, especially since she has a belief that if you wrap something in foil and shove it into your luggage, no one will know it is there; it won’t even show up on the airport X-ray machine. She explained this to me once with utter conviction. I didn't argue. We all need to have things to believe in.

Wontons are not supposed to weigh you down. With a small piece of filling surrounded generously by paper thin dumpling skin, a wonton is meant to float in a bowl of broth as weightlessly as a cloud. When you eat a wonton, you are as the name itself explains, swallowing a cloud.

Won, cloud. Ton, to swallow.

These shitake and chard dumplings float ethereally while offering flavors that are entirely of the earth. If our mother's wontons provide us children with a solid reminder of who we are and where we come from, perhaps my dumplings speak more of what we have moved toward, or even become. We may seem a little lighter, but our burdens are different: we are the next generation.

InstructionsCover tomatoes with hot water while prepping mushrooms, chard, onions, garlic. Meanwhile, heat oil over medium heat in a large pan. Add chard and saute until wilted. Remove from pan and press chard with the back of a wooden spoon, draining away the liquid. Allow chard to cool.

Prepare a baking tray: dust lightly with cornstarch. Add a small amount of water to a bowl for dipping your fingers in while folding the dumplings.

Place a teaspoon or so of filling in the center of a wonton wrapper. Wet fingertip and run a long two edges and then fold skin over to form a triangle. Press to seal tightly to prevent filling from spilling out into your broth. Again, it's very important that you have a good, tight seal.

From here, dumplings may be placed on prepped sheets so that they do not touch, dusted with an additional bit of cornstarch, and placed in the freezer. Freeze for at least 2 hours, then place in freezer bags to store.

For cooking: Bring pot of water to boil. Heat broth in a separate pot. Place dumplings in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Gently remove with a slotted spoon, placing them into heated broth for another minute. Serve in bowls with chopped green onions or cilantro. Drizzle with sesame oil.

My grandmother was way too busy to cook. After she came to live with us in L.A. in the seventies, she was always going to the dim sum parlor to yum cha with her friends. Or, she could frequently be found riding the bus around the brown, smoggy city with my brother, Simon, making him hand out to unsuspecting passengers tracts and flyers about Jesus and the Second Coming, two things in which she staunchly believed.

Growing up, nearly all the food we ate was Chinese, of the Cantonese variety. We lived in Chinatown and our mother did most of her shopping there, with eggs and freshly killed chicken from the place on Broadway, staples from the shop still at the corner of Hill and Alpine, slippery rice noodles from Bicycle Lee, who pedaled around the neighborhood hawking the most delicious wares from a metal box attached to the back of his two-wheel vehicle.

The furthest afield we might have gone was downtown, such as the time when Granny (as we Americanized Chinese kids called her) purchased an enormous watermelon from the Grand Central Market, brought it home on the bus, and carried it up to the front steps of our house, shouting, "Ayyyaaaa, help!" because she was about to drop it.

There is really only one dish I ever remember Granny cooking, though: Oatmeal and ground beef porridge.

I know. Sounds a little strange, but it's what she came up with after my sister, Marilyn, learned how to make meatloaf in her seventh grade Home Economics class. The binder in the meatloaf? Not breadcrumbs or milk-soaked pieces of bread, but oatmeal. My grandmother seemed to think this combination genius. Soon after Marilyn made the Luther Burbank Jr. High School Home Ec special for us, Granny began whipping up her deconstructed version, complete with a soy sauce drizzle.

Images of our oatmeal porridge-eating Granny. In the left photo, I am sandwiched between my mother and Granny.

When I came across a number of recipes recently substituting grains (farro, amaranth, etc.) in dishes where rice might more normally be used, I immediately recalled Granny's porridge. I imagined a pot of it simmering on our avocado green stove, the rich meaty smell floating through the rest of the house. Was her dish such a far cry from other savory grain dishes now in vogue? Maybe hers was a bit more rustic, but it was still filling, warming and worth eating on a cool, end-of-winter day.

When I began to think about it more, it occurred to me that what Granny was doing back then continues to occur today. People travelling across worlds to start over or just to visit briefly inevitably fold into their lives new ways of eating and seeing, thinking and being.

The oatmeal and beef porridge which we ABC (American Born Chinese) kids found to be such a strange combination had been created in the same spirit as that. Granny was taking the old Chinese technique of long-simmering rice and liquid (into jook, a savory porridge), and applying it to what for her was a new-world grain. In the end, she made a dish that was all her own.

Isn't that what the best of any kind of cooking, whether in a humble home kitchen or a critically-acclaimed restaurant is ultimately about -- being creative and using the best of what you have in a way that means something to you?

That's what I strive for, at least, with the hope that it will also taste good.

Speaking of which, this carrot and kale farrotto is something that falls squarely in that category, the tastes-so-good-I-can't-stop-eating-it one, that is. Cooked just like a risotto, using cracked farro instead of rice, this dish is filled with sweet, caramelized carrots and silky ribbons of kale, bits of parmesan that melt into the tender, nourishing grain.

Cheesy, sweet, nutty. This farrotto is something I can staunchly believe in. And, I am willing to bet my Granny would have loved it too.

Hope you like it!

Let the light shine on your farrotto. Drizzle some herbaceous oil over top. Shower on the parmesan cheese.

Roasted Carrot and Kale Farrotto

Inspired by the many cooks and chefs exploring the beauty and flavors of grains. And by my Granny too, of course.

Toss carrots with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread in a single layer on a greased or lined baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes, stirring at least once. The carrots should look like they are beginning to caramelize, with dark edges.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the onion, garlic and a generous pinch of salt. Cook until onion is softened (do not allow to brown), about 7 minutes. Add farro and stir to coat with the oil mixture. Cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Add the wine and cook until almost completely absorbed, about 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of the hot broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until the broth is almost completely absorbed (there should be very little liquid when you scrape the bottom of the pan, but the farro should not be sticking). Reduce the heat if necessary. Continue to add broth in 1/4 cup increments, stirring occasionally and allowing the farro to absorb the liquid almost completely with each addition. Cook until farro is tender but still has some bite. (This should take about 30 minutes.) Add roasted carrots. Add kale and stir until wilted. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes.

Stir in cheese and an additional tablespoon of butter. Add 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup broth to moisten the farrotto. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon into shallow bowls. Sprinkle with additional cheese and drizzle with additional olive oil, if desired.

*A Note: I used cracked farro, but you may substitute whole farro if you wish. Please keep in mind that you'll need to cook the whole farro for much longer.

Have you ever set off the smoke detectors in your house while cooking? I do it on occasion and it doesn't necessarily mean something bad is happening on the stove or in the oven.

I managed to set the alarms off while making this dish. Despite all the racket (including a howling dog and a toddler shouting what happening on top of the mechanical shrieking), it was worth it. And yes, I'd do it again.

Let me tell you why.

Drop some romano beans - a flat type of pole bean - into a red-hot cast iron pan and the outside of the humble green veg develops a blackish char that belies an alluring smokiness within.

The extremely hot pan offers up real vividness to the romano. This is a green bean that needs more cooking time than the regular, thinner sort to become tender. The dark char does much more than just cook the bean through. It pushes the romano to the very edge of its full potential, caramelizing the sugars and adding layers of dimension and flavor.

To me, this transformation is alchemy, pure magic. One of those simple wonders that can happen in the kitchen, even for a humble home cook. It makes me want to char every vegetable in sight.

Let me go back slightly, though. I'm a bit of an armchair traveler these days, mostly through cookbooks and such. This time, it was (yet again) Ottolenghi's Jerusalem. It's the kind of book I return to again and again not because of its beautiful images or enticing recipes, but because it is so rooted in all that is deeply personal, in memory and place. For me, that is the only location in which the most soulful and satisfying sort of cooking can exist.

This is an adaptation of one of the recipes. It utilizes okra. I didn't know where to get fresh okra up here near the Canadian border, so I used what I had, romano beans straight from the farm. Why not?

I also had a half-pint of the last of the season's cherry tomatoes which the farmer had included in our weekly box. I remembered the jar of preserved lemons I'd made in July that would be more than ready for this purpose.

Crunchy and smokey, tart and lemony bright, this is a perfect dish for transitioning toward the more fall- and winter-like dishes so soon to come. Make this before you start on those long braises and the heavier stews and casseroles, which do, I must concede, offer our hearts and bellies the sustenance we need during the colder months.

Up here in Western Washington, we've been hurtling toward the daily end-of-day darkness with alarming speed. And, this week's local forecast calls for thundershowers through to the weekend.

I might make this again tomorrow so I can savor a few more mouthfuls of sunshine while I can. Won't you?

InstructionsTrim off stem edge of beans then cut on the diagonal into 1 1/4-inch pieces. Divide into two batches.

Place a large, heavy-bottomed cast iron pan over high heat and leave for a few minutes. When the pan is very hot, throw one batch of the beans in and allow to cook for about 6 minutes, shaking occasionally. The beans should have dark blisters. Remove from pan and cook the remaining batch in the same way.

Return the charred romano beans to the pan and add the olive oil, garlic and preserved lemon. Stir fry for 2 more minutes on high. Reduce heat to medium-high and add tomatoes, 2 tablespoons water, chopped cilantro, lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste. Stir ingredients together in the pan and allow to cook another 2 to 3 minutes, until the tomatoes begin to soften and give up some of their juices.

It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you. People’s failings, even major ones such as when they make you wear short trousers to school, fall into insignificance as your teeth break through the rough, toasted crust and sink into the doughy cushion of white bread underneath. Once the warm, salty butter has hit your tongue, you are smitten. Putty in their hands.